Adaptive clothing is clothing that is specifically designed to facilitate a user's ability to dress when the user has diminished physical capability or dexterity generally required to manipulate features of clothing such as buttons. Adaptive clothing has been designed for people with such conditions as arthritis, oedema, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, and brain injury. Adaptive clothing includes adaptations to make clothing look conventional. Jumpsuits can be used to simulate a combination of shirt and pants. Garments that need to be opened in the back may be made to appear as standard, front-opening garments.
Structure in adaptive garments may be particularly adapted to address specific problems. Length of various sections of clothing may be increased in order to accommodate wheelchair users, for example. Clothing may be designed to be removed easily and quickly for users with incontinence. The clothing may also be designed to accommodate incontinence aids discreetly and comfortably. For users who have lost fine motor skills due to Parkinson's Disease or arthritis, for example, buttons and zippers have been replaced by magnets or hook and mesh fasteners, often referred to by the trademark Velcro®.
Using conventional clothing, the wearer must manipulate each button through a button hole. This manipulation requires a degree of manual dexterity which is beyond the capabilities of many wearers subject to the medical conditions discussed above. In adaptive clothing, the button may be affixed to the outer surface of the garment. This gives the appearance that the button is secured to a conventional “button side” and has come through a buttonhole. In order to close a garment, a user places one side over the other such that magnets or hooks and mesh are in registration and press them together to close the garment.
Different varieties of magnetic closures have been introduced in adaptive clothing. Closure simply requires placing opposite magnets, for example, in registration. Designing the closure members in adaptive clothing requires optimization of strength of the closure, simplicity in construction, and ease-of-use for the user. The prior art is discussed primarily in the context of closures which replace a button. In one form a first portion, an upper front facing, is secured to a second portion, a lower front facing. Buttons are affixed to an upper layer to give the appearance of being fastened to the lower front facing and having come through button holes. The buttons may be attached to a placket.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,210,953 discloses a system in which a button is secured on an outer surface of an upper front facing. Three layers, an outer layer, an inner layer, and a lower layer are formed by folding an end of the upper front facing back over itself. These layers define one chamber that encloses thread on a lower surface of a fabric layer having an upper surface to which a button is attached. A magnet is disposed in a second chamber. The necessity of working with folded over sections creates difficulty in maintaining alignment of the folds in order to create uniform chambers. The complexity of this construction requires a higher level of skill of sewing machine operators and increased time and cost in manufacturing.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,717,293 discloses a magnetic fastener that permits existing garment buttons to be retrofitted for use by persons having diminished motor abilities. The magnetic button system comprises a button cover received over an existing button and having a magnet housed therein. The magnet is attracted to a magnetic or ferromagnetic element on a button hole engagement member received in a button hole of an existing garment. A separate button hole engagement member must be provided. The upper front facing will not be flush with the lower front facing because an adapter must be placed on the existing button.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,572,386 discloses a magnetic closure for clothing with non-magnetic backing. A flat, round magnet is inserted into a non-magnetic metal “cup” and enclosed entirely within a square, thin laminate covering. One flat surface of the magnet is exposed, and the opposite flat surface of the magnet is set against the inner surface of the non-magnetic metal cup. The non-magnetic metal cup serves to block or reduce the magnetic force of the surface of the flat, round magnet set against the inner surface of the cup. Such magnet, cup and laminate assemblies with exposed magnet surfaces of opposing polarities can be sewn or stitched on opposing sides of garment or clothing openings and used to close or fasten the garment or clothing utilizing magnetic force. The metal cup must be of the same size as the magnet, adding to the complexity of construction. The laminate covering is thin, e.g., <1 mm. It is simply sewn to a surface and is not part of a particular assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,392,829 discloses a device for magnetic clasping for a clothing accessory including at least one permanently magnetized assembly arranged at one end of one surface of the accessory. A plurality of ferromagnetic elements are arranged longitudinally on the other surface at the opposite end thereof. The magnetized assemblies of one surface may be laterally displaced to a position on the other surface. A plurality of adjustment positions of the surfaces are obtained relative to the position of the magnetized assemblies and ferromagnetic elements, representing a plurality of possible tightness levels. This construction is complex. It is not suitable for use in a placket. In a placket, two magnetic closure elements should not have a plurality of adjustment positions.